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san serif partner for sabon?
Posted by ALJ in
21 Feb 2007 — 5:45pm
21 Feb 2007 — 5:45pm
Does anyone have a favorite san serif typeface that they use in combination with Sabon? Usually I use Avenir but I'm looking for something new... thanks for your advice.
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21 Feb 2007 — 6:18pm
Many sans serifs will work. What is the subject matter and audience of your project?
21 Feb 2007 — 6:39pm
It's for my CV and portfolio. I'm a student looking for a job.
21 Feb 2007 — 6:46pm
Are you limited to your current font library rather than looking to purchase? I assume so. It might be best to know what is available to you first.
21 Feb 2007 — 6:49pm
I have most of the well-known typefaces, and I don't mind purchasing more. So anything would be okay.
21 Feb 2007 — 7:07pm
Here are some sans serifs with similar proportions to Sabon but each are from very different genres. If one looks good to you, I can recommend more from the same genre.
FF Absara
FF Bau
Cronos
Tschichold
21 Feb 2007 — 7:12pm
Thanks for the ideas! I will try those and see where that gets me.
21 Feb 2007 — 7:42pm
FWIW, I would add Syntax
21 Feb 2007 — 9:36pm
Really, Charles? Syntax feels so dated to me. Really '80s, and not in a good way.
21 Feb 2007 — 9:44pm
Syntax is perfect for Sabon! It was originally created as sort of a sans serif version of Sabon.
21 Feb 2007 — 11:16pm
Anne – one of the great things about posting here is the realisation that such innocuous-sounding questions provoke such diverse and impassioned responses. I too had strong feelings for Syntax but am going through what can only be described as a rather messy break-up with it.
FWIW, I would contrast graceful Sabon with something counterwise, like a gritty grotesque such as the bold or condensed weights of FB Grotesque or its antecedent, Monotype Grotesque.
22 Feb 2007 — 1:33am
-FF Din
-Xavier Dupré's FF Sanuk
>Cronos
Who works with Cronos?
It would be a shame to bother the grand Sabon with *Cronos.
*One of the well-known sans, i have a strong personal dislike against.
Okay, maybe it is because of my poor imagination ;)
22 Feb 2007 — 4:06am
I also like Syntax
22 Feb 2007 — 4:14am
Gill or Bliss
Tim
22 Feb 2007 — 5:46am
Syntax feels so dated to me. Really ’80s, and not in a good way.
Ah, but I'm a '60s guy -- uh, that's 1960s. We all had more fun in our youth. As you said, font selection depends on audience. Older people hire. But maybe I'm tooo old.
Seriously, My real problem with all this is I wouldn't use Sabon. It was one of the few text fonts that worked well on the Linotron 202, but somehow never survived the transition to PostScript. The PostScript italic is dreadful.
Now if I were hiring a book interior desiger and they used Sabon on their CV, they would start pretty far down the list. Things may well be different for people hiring another kind of designer, which is what makes your "audience" remark so very perceptive and appropriate.
The only thing I disagree with is the '80s look. Wasn't that the "me first" and "disco" decade? I think Syntax rather better than that.
22 Feb 2007 — 6:41am
Thank you everyone for the comments. This forum is very helpful to me.
22 Feb 2007 — 7:56am
Today Sans and Scala Sans would both work well IMHO
22 Feb 2007 — 8:36am
I hate to be picky, but the 70's was the disco decade. Are they all running together? ;)
Stephen, I can't search from this browser/Mac combo; isn't there a list somewhere we collected of humanist sans? Someone else asked a relevant question recently too.
I also wanted to find that thread that ended up being a list of narrow sans faces. That would be good to put in the wiki.
22 Feb 2007 — 10:56am
The late ’70s was Disco, no? The earlier years in that decade, although I was very young at the time, remind me of Led Zeppelin.
22 Feb 2007 — 11:13am
> The only thing I disagree with is the ’80s look. Wasn’t that the “me first” and “disco” decade? I think Syntax rather better than that.
A lot of text in the late '80s was set in Syntax and I don't think it ever looked great.
> Stephen, I can’t search from this browser/Mac combo; isn’t there a list somewhere we collected of humanist sans?
Probably, but I was looking for stuff of similar width and x-height to Sabon. A lot of Sans have a much larger x-height than Sabon and I was trying to narrow it down to the best matches.
22 Feb 2007 — 11:20am
Disco was definitely late 70s. As epitomized in 1977's Saturday Night Fever.
The 70s was also the "Me Decade" (as designated by Tom Wolfe in 1976).
22 Feb 2007 — 12:16pm
I hate to be picky, but the 70’s was the disco decade. Are they all running together? ;)
Yes, as best I remember. Uh, are you sure you hate being picky?
22 Feb 2007 — 1:01pm
I've always felt that Frutiger Roman and Frutiger Ultra Black go well with Sabon
22 Feb 2007 — 3:28pm
Disco was definitely late '70s. Depends where you were at the time Patty; punk was also definitely late 70s, but I remember the two things co-existing for only the briefest of periods – maybe a single summer.
Back on topic, a lot of text in the '80s also got set in ITC Garamond, which, in my book, was always a much more evil choice than Syntax.
22 Feb 2007 — 7:27pm
"are you sure you hate being picky?"
Naah, I love it actually. Well it's my job anyway... ;D
22 Feb 2007 — 8:35pm
Punk was for sure late 70s too - provided a welcome antidote to the plastic-ness of disco. I remember that brief coexistence too but I think it was more than a summer. In NY at least, you had Horses in '76, Talking Heads 77 and the Ramones making noise at that time too. You could go to Studio 54 one night and the Mudd Club the next.
22 Feb 2007 — 9:41pm
Patty! You just got 30 pts in my book for mentioning Talking Heads.
But we digress.